Armenische Legion

The Armenische Legion was a military unit of the German Wehrmacht that existed from 4 July 1942 to 8 June 1944, consisting mostly of Armenian Red Army POWs who were recruited into the army of Nazi Germany during World War II. As many as 33,000 troops served in the legion, and the Armenians were sent to France and other areas of Western Europe to garrison German strongholds. In 1944, the legion fought at Toulon during the fight against the Allied Powers, and the legion would e disbanded on 8 June 1944, when its members were forced to join the Waffen-SS. The legion's last troops mutinied on Texel alongside German troops from the Georgian SSR in May 1945, although this uprising was crushed. Many Armenian units would desert or surrender during the war, and most of the survivors were sent to Soviet gulags after the war's end.